The Lake House Chapter 8, a criminal minds fanfic

Guest reviewer Ayaa: thank you for your review :) I'm so glad you're enjoying the story.

Criminal Minds characters and universe are not mine, but the original characters, storyline and wording are mine.

The Lake House

Chapter 08

Quantico, VA

When JJ appeared in the bullpen with Garcia in tow and a casefile in hand, beckoning the rest of the team to join her in the war room, none of them had thought for a second that it might involve Hotch. They sat silently while Garcia spoke with the woman on the other end of the line, wondering who she was and how she came to be there, at least until Garcia realised that she must have escaped from the unsubs whose pictures came up on the large display board at the beginning of the conversation, appearing on their tablets at the same time.

"Any time, my lady. And tell Hotch I called him 'honey'." Garcia ended the call and turned to face the rest of the team. "Well, as expected, our fearless leader couldn't stay out of trouble for long. Although whether this points to him being being a danger magnet or a babe magnet for now is anyone's guess. Who knows, maybe both."

Morgan rolled his eyes and Reid simply gave her a quizzical look. She guessed someone had to, seeing as Hotch wasn't here at the moment to silently urge her to continue with the presentation with less fluff and more facts. She cleared her throat.

"Anyway, so the situation is, Hotch and a woman called Lily are at Hotch's Montana cabin and apparently there are two male unsubs, whom she has already escaped. We're just waiting on Hotch as apparently it's going to be difficult for Lily to talk about what they did to her.." She sent some maps to the team's tablets of Hotch's cabin and the surrounding area.

"Once we've heard the details from the victim, Hotch wants us to fly out to him." JJ said. "Reid, he said he wanted the last, non flyable leg of the journey to the cabin to be made as inconspicuously as possible. Can you look into finding us a mode of transport that would be stealthier than a helicopter? We need to make as little noise as possible as the unsubs seem to be quite close by and, possibly, watching the cabin and surrounding area."

Reid nodded and worked quickly on his tablet. He heard Garcia's phone ring again, and was able to keep track of that conversation as well as his efforts to finalise travel plans. He smiled to himself when he sent the confirmation off; the team would never in a million years guess how they were going to be arriving at Hotch's cabin. He was also looking forward to seeing Hotch's face when he saw them.

"Hi Hotch, how're you guys doing?" Garcia had everyone's attention as she answered the call. "OK, I'll put you on speaker." The speaker for conference calls crackled to life.

"Is everyone here?" They all greeted him in the affirmative, noting the tension in his voice, which was unusual for their unit chief. He was the most unflappable of all; if he was disturbed by the situation, it was bad. The microphone crackled a little and a woman's voice came over the speaker.

"Hello. My name is Lily Beauchamp." She sounded nervous but determined, her accent placing her origin in the British Isles.

"Hi, Lily. I'm SSA Jennifer Jareau but you can call me JJ. Are you OK to talk to us about this?" JJ planted herself in a chair next to Morgan and opposite Prentiss. Prentiss looked unnerved for some reason but she ignored it for now.

"Yes, thank you, JJ, I'll manage. Do you guys want to ask me questions or should I just narrate from a certain point?" Nerves aside, Lily seemed sensible and intelligent.

"Lily, this is SSA Derek Morgan. Why not narrate from a point shortly before everything went wrong and we'll ask questions if we need to?" Morgan reclined in his chair, trying to project his relaxed body language in his voice to make her more comfortable.

"Yes, I can do that." They heard her swallow and set down a glass. "I'm not good with cars, so it wasn't the biggest surprise when I couldn't figure out why the one I'd hired had broken down. I'm not the type to hitch hike with random truck drivers, believe me. But the guy who stopped was nothing but decent to me while he spent four hours trying everything he could to get my car started again. Even after what happened, I still believe that when he stopped, even when he offered me a ride he had no intention of hurting me."

"Sorry to interrupt. SSA Emily Prentiss here. What makes you so sure of that?" Something about this woman was bothering Prentiss and she couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe she just didn't like any woman who got to spend alone time with Hotch, even though it was in the aftermath of a trauma and, more than likely, completely innocent. He hadn't dated anyone since he and Hayley split, and she was still waiting for the right time to try and make him notice her.

"Because the whole time we were talking, for four hours, he didn't tell so much as one lie. It was like spending time with a favourite uncle. There was no danger. I don't think that changed until after I mentioned working with the police back home. And at that point I was drifting off to sleep. So while he didn't want to or mean to hurt me before then, there was something in his life that made him take me. I also think that's why he didn't speak a single word to me after I woke up with my hands tied to a pipe; he couldn't afford to think of me as a person after that. I was just an animal to him then, something to be kicked and silenced." They heard her draw a shuddering breath.

"Lily, I'm Dr Spencer Reid. What can you tell us about the inside of the truck, the part in which you woke up." Reid was making notes on a legal pad, underlining some things, crossing out others.

"I think it was supposed to be his sleeping quarters. There was a platform for a bed. But he couldn't have used it, the whole space was full."

"What was it full of?" JJ interjected.

"Ah…they looked like coolers, like beer coolers. But they were red and white, with some kind of blue logo on the side. And it was too cold in there to sleep. I was half frozen to the floor when I woke up."

Reid wrote quickly on his legal pad before holding it up so the others could see. In bold letters he'd written 'HUMAN ORGANS ?'. They all nodded; it was the most likely explanation, and with that many coolers, a very good reason to take drastic action to protect them.

"He wouldn't look at me." Lily continued. "Not in the eyes. If I moved he kicked me. If I spoke he punched me. I'm a quick learner; I didn't do either for long."

"Lily, drink some water." They heard the concern in Hotch's voice.

"Did he keep you there for long after you'd woken up?" Prentiss asked, uncomfortable with the silence.

"No. I don't think it was even an hour before I heard a car pull up to where we were stopped. It got worse when the other guy arrived. The first guy wouldn't look at me; the new guy wouldn't stop. I could deal with that, but he wouldn't shut up. When he untied me, when he dragged me out the truck and into the car, when he put the chains around my ankles. Oh god I just wanted him to stop talking." She made a distressed humming sound and they could hear her trying to clear the lump in her throat so she could continue.

They could hear Hotch murmuring wordless sounds of comfort to her until she calmed. Morgan looked at Rossi, who had been silent so far, and raised an eyebrow. The Italian's face remained impassive and he simply shrugged and leaned forward.

"This is SSA David Rossi. I know this is difficult, and probably something you don't want to remember, but what was he saying to you while he moved you between vehicles?" Rossi flinched at the humourless laugh that echoed briefly over the speaker.

"He talked about baseball mostly. And his garden. And what kind of ice cream he liked. He talked about every innocent thing under the sun, the whole time looking at me like I was his favourite kind of ice cream." She sounded sick to her stomach and they looked at each other in sympathy.

They knew from thousands of victim interviews that it wasn't what was said that was important, but what was meant. And a person afraid for their life is astutely adept at picking up on nuance.

"It wasn't what he said that bothered me, it was the colours in which he said it. Like mould. Like death." They heard her gag.

"Colours?" asked Rossi, confused.

"Reid, please enlighten the team on a condition known as synaesthesia, chromesthesia in particular. We need a short break." Hotch kept his voice as calm as possible, then muted the connection.

"Ah." Said Reid, realisation dawning on his face.

"Reid? Care to share with the rest of the class?" said Morgan after a few seconds silence.

"Most simply put, she can see sounds. She hears them like anyone, of course, but everything she hears also has a colour that she sees. Chromesthetics are incalculably talented at reading between the lines, because they can actually see what you mean. Everything we feel reflects in our tone of voice. I strongly suggest none of us try to hide anything from her. If you wanted to lie to her, you'd need to write on a piece of paper while standing far enough away that she couldn't even hear your breathing or heartbeat." Reid sounded fascinated.

"That man could have read out his sweet old grandmother's recipe for chocolate chip cookies and she'd have known he meant to kill her." Garcia grasped the concept quickly and ran with it.

"And that's why she thought she was safe with the truck driver, safe enough to take a ride when he offered, because she could see it. That could work in our favour, though, right?" said Morgan. "She may have picked up on other things while they had her, even if they weren't discussing them."

"Guys, we're turning this break into a meal; why don't you get to the jet and we'll pick up this call again once you're in the air. Say thirty minutes? Oh and Garcia? Lily says to tell you the picture of the man wearing wire rimmed glasses is the second man. I've also marked on the map you sent over the location where Lily's car broke down, where she thinks they stopped to put her into the car, and the point in the woods from which she emerged after she escaped." Hotch's voice cut out as the connection was closed and they all stood, ready to leave, with no further discussion.

"OK the cars are downstairs. Garcia, send us anything you get so we can relay it to Hotch." Morgan gave her a tight hug before walking out the door. "And let us know of anything in particular you need us to ask her." He waved one hand in the air as he followed the others to the elevator.

"Be safe, guys. Please be safe." Garcia was already on her way to her office, muttering under her breath. Once she was there, she brought up the face recognition search and tagged the two pictures A and B while it continued processing, and then ran a cataloguing script on the other search, which had been compiling man-made features both above and below ground for the four hundred square miles surrounding Hotch's cabin.

As the BAU team reached the jet, their tablets were already receiving a steady stream of information about the area and the results of the search Garcia had run against the two sketches. As they took their seats and waited for takeoff, Prentiss was the first to check her tablet. The first thing she saw was the result of the facial recognition search. Her heart dropped into her stomach when she saw the name underneath the picture of the second man.

"Oh…shit." With wide eyes she flipped it to show the others. Underneath Lily's likeness of the man were three words that froze all of them in their seats.

Alexander LaGrange-Foyet.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Morgan rubbed his hand over his face. "What the hell has Hotch stumbled into?"